


Overhead, Undertow

by poquito (manta)



Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Drowning, Lots of Angst, M/M, Mer!Haru likes mackerel more than ever, Mer!Haruka and Human Makoto, Minor Character Deaths, Pre MakoHaru, Who woulda thunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-27
Updated: 2015-04-27
Packaged: 2018-03-21 07:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3684297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manta/pseuds/poquito
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The storm came in a haze of gusting rain, arriving to empty streets and sandbagged doorways.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overhead, Undertow

**Author's Note:**

> For Riin, based off of her lovely [art](http://getsukii.tumblr.com/post/83498823447/mochiiron-now-i-can-breathe-turn-my-insides/). 
> 
> Riin! I wish you the nicest of birthdays. <3 I'm sorry for the lack of fluff/OTPness in this present; I meant it to have plenty when I thought about what to write. But another idea took hold, and I kept going to see what happened. Hope you like. *sweats profusely*
> 
> A big thanks to [sakuramiko16](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuramiko16) for the encouragement, and [b_minor](http://archiveofourown.org/users/b_minor) for beta-ing and always being awesome.

The water welcomed Makoto into its waiting embrace.

He couldn’t quite remember why it expected him, how it knew he was coming, or why he was here at all, sinking ever deeper.

The sudden iciness shocked him to his senses.

 _Get out!_ Every fibre of his being screamed. He fought desperately, his perspective mired by bubbles and panic.

 _Not again_ , he begged; to whom, he didn’t know. _Please_.

The water innocently tilted its head, at one last attempt at a farce.

Then it bared its teeth.

 

* * *

 

A media project, the final one of the third years’ high school careers. The goal: a video the Iwatobi Tourism Office could use to promote the town. The student council in Makoto’s year were the boisterous sort who enjoyed the here and now, determined to get in one last hurrah before everyone went their separate ways.

Thus, their proposal for the video’s premise was accordingly farfetched.

“Pirates and the navy, fighting on motorboats? Ridiculous idea, but it _is_ your last high school assignment,” their class advisor says, with a sigh. “I’ll approve it.”

Despite Makoto’s subtle but insistent hints that no, he was not interested in a major role, let alone any performances for this project, let alone acting at all for the rest of his life, he could not fight the entire student body that was hellbent on making him the handsome navy commander.

“You’re tall, you’re good looking, and you’re the swim club captain! It’s got to be you, Tachibana-kun!” The student council president sang into the intercom system, as if those were perfectly sound reasons.

(Upon despairing to said swim club, Rei declared how beautiful Makoto would look in military costume and that this would be good publicity for the club, Nagisa nodded enthusiastically and unhelpfully along with a gleam in his eye, and Gou exclaimed something about calf muscles looking more toned in boots.

Makoto resigned himself to his fate.)

That was how he found himself in the middle of the bay on a clear but blustery day, feeling ridiculous in a dark blue military jacket with golden epaulettes, stiff white pants, and long heavy boots borrowed from the drama department, and being reprimanded by a student director clearly used to working with people who had more theatre experience than playing a motionless sunflower when they were eight. Oh, and who could act their way out of a paper bag.

When the director finally had enough of his lead’s flubbed lines and lacklustre performance (Makoto’s attempts to brandish a sword were equivalent to his skill and enthusiasm in swatting flies), he threw down his script, yelled for an indefinite break (did the student council think this was a _joke_?), and stormed into the cabin. His producer chased after his wounded ego with reassuring words and aspirin at the ready, while Makoto opted to stay on deck.

The sun beat down, and the uniform was a furnace, but he preferred to put as far a distance between himself and the director as possible. He glumly stared into the water, wondering when he could step onto dry land again and finally go home, be tackled by his siblings as he stepped inside, change into the rattiest and loosest T-shirt he had, and collapse at the dinner table.

That was when Makoto saw the fin.

It was unlike any fish’s he had seen before: pristine and pearl blue, the caudal peduncle’s scales shining with a spectrum of colour, scattered and mesmerizing in the refracted light.

“Oh!” he whispered, breath catching, leaning as close as he dared without tipping, to watch it slowly fade from sight. He was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.

It seemed to happen in slow motion.

In his fascination, Makoto failed to notice the water growing steadily choppier. A particularly strong wave slapped the starboard side of the boat, throwing him forward. His legs, stiff from kneeling for so long, failed to steady him before he pitched into the water.

 

* * *

 

  _With a dull thud, Makoto’s elbow collided into the table’s edge._

_“Ow, ow, ow,” he whimpered, pain shooting up his arm. Tears welled in his eyes._

_“You know better than that, Makoto.” Grandma Nanase chided, but lifted his arm to examine the wound. “It’ll be a bruise at the worst. Dry your eyes, and let’s have tea.”_

_Makoto nodded, wiping his face with his other arm. He watched her pour tea into two intricately painted cups- a wedding gift from long ago. “Did you need anything else done, Granny? I already swept the floor and dusted yesterday.”_

_“I know. I’m old, not senile,” she answered, blue eyes flashing with good humour. “I made curry for you to share with your family. But, I invited you over to talk to you.”_

_“Talk to me?” he asked curiously, accepting the steaming cup she passed to him. They talked plenty, in between the housework Makoto did around her house, their journeys to the shrine, and her frequent visits next door._

_“Makoto, don’t think I haven’t noticed you bumping into things all week. You can be rough, but you’re not careless. What’s distracting you?”_

_Grandma Nanase’s gaze pierced his own, and Makoto knew he couldn’t lie._

_“Last week, I went to the beach,” he said, hesitantly. “It wasn’t that crowded because the storm clean up was still going on. But… I saw people lined up and dressed in white, heading towards the ocean.”_

_The fabrics’ glare had caught Makoto’s eye, and he followed at a distance. The alienness entranced and terrified him, this ghost-like procession, whose participants marched in silence. Two redheaded children materialized in the spectacle, children his age, dressed like their peers but for their faces, which were uncovered._

_Makoto watched, mouth slightly open and uncomprehending. But the occasion appeared solemn, and the children cried. Their tears reflected in the light, their sombre faces stared straight ahead, the grief trapped inside with no release, juxtaposed against the open sky that was clear as a bell. One of the children sensed an obtrusive presence and turned, unashamed of her water stained cheeks as she stared straight at Makoto._

_He looked back, pinned by the hard gaze that was too disconcertingly adult on such a young face. Then the sea breeze billowed fabric every which way, obscuring the children once more, and Makoto fled away as fast as he could, toward the town where life was slowly returning._

_He would only later learn: these were the families of the fishermen whose lives had been claimed by the storm._

_“Ah.” Grandma Nanase sighed, a long release. “The fisherman was your friend, right? Hiroshi. Your mother told me how kind he was to you. I talked with him a few times myself, reminiscing about Iwatobi in our younger days.”_

_Makoto thought of the goldfish, presented out of generosity but now a parting gift, buried in his backyard with his own hands. He could only nod._

_“Do you know the Matsuokas as well? They lost their father. I’m sure you’ve met their son in swim meets before.”_

_The name was unfamiliar to Makoto, but he probably would know if he had a face to match to the name. He nodded again, anyway._

_“I’ve been making meals whenever I can, but they live too far away to visit often. They…” Grandma Nanase’s eyes paused on a dent in the wooden table. “Well, they’re managing.”_

_Makoto’s teacher gave him gold stars for helping his classmates at school. But squabbles over seats and lost pencils were hardly comparable, and uncertainty stumbled his speech._ _“Are they... okay?”  
_

_“Well, no one is ever the same after a loss. All we can do is rebuild our lives around what’s missing, and finding that balance again takes time.” She drained her cup in one long sip and refilled it, giving Makoto a sad smile. “You’re a sweet boy for worrying about them.”_

_Makoto smiled back, and her praise emboldened him. “Granny, did a storm like the one we had ever happen when you were young?”_

_She absentmindedly tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear. "There were plenty of rainy days. I would save the worms on the paths to scare my brother.“_

_Her full bellied laugh restored youthful colour to her cheeks, and Makoto believed her._

_“But no, there weren’t many storms like this one. There was only one other close to your lifetime, a few months before you were born. It was the kind of storm that felt like the ocean was turned on its head. Like the very foundation of the world was being stirred.”_

 

* * *

 

 Makoto broke the water’s surface. Broke it, with twice the force he reserved for the start in his backstroke.

(“You run out of steam early because you see what’s behind and in front of you, not what’s happening at the present moment, ” Coach Sasabe reminded him. “Save your strength, Makoto. Especially for the final lap.”)

Makoto desperately sucked in, his gasp further shallowed by panic. The breath was enough only for one word.

“Hel-!”

A wave slapped him in the face and snatched his voice away, mocking his fruitless cry, and down again he went.

He was vaguely aware of his hat coming off, leading the way down. Perhaps the life vest would buoy him back up. No, he’d taken it off on the boat to film. Then, discard the jacket. But the clasps were too stiff for chilled fingers to undo. The pants, then… but they were worn under the boots. So the boots. But they went up his calves, double knotted to avoid the laces coming undone.

All the while, the heaviness clung to his limbs, became him.

The water lazily opened its jaws. Waiting.

Makoto seized the jacket’s material in both hands, pulled at it as if it would rip and peel away like sodden paper. Frustration and the desperate need to breathe (or was it to scream?) gnawed through his insides and seeped through every nerve in his body.

Years of swim lessons and family vacations near the water. An incident a year ago when he dove into the surf, all thoughtlessness and reckless abandon for someone else. And yet, in this situation most dire, with no coaches or lifeguards, he couldn’t save himself.

Even in his frenzied state, the irony wasn’t lost on him.

 

* * *

 

  _“Ah... choo!”_

_The sunlight streaming in from the curtains tickled Makoto’s nose. Swiftly sliding the window pane back, he managed to aim his sneeze into the open air. '“Excuse me!” he exclaimed to the birds on the telephone wire._

_A shocked pause, and his laughter carried away on the salty breeze. Clearly he was spending too much time with Rin, who, despite being back in Japan for almost three years, still spoke like a foreigner when he forgot to catch himself._

_The ocean beckoned invitingly from this height, all shine and intriguing mystery, a far cry from the angry deity of reckoning that arrived years ago. The benevolent shrine god blessed Iwatobi’s inhabitants with enough take to live off the water’s wealth. But the dominion of the shrine god ended at the bay; the god of the sea had a wider reach, with many more subjects, and was far less merciful._

_Makoto turned away from the window to lean against the desk._

_The sparsely furnished bedroom lacked the staleness typical of a neglected home, as he and his parents frequently let themselves in to air out the house. But the cleared nightstand, bare mattress, and empty drawers were only skeletons, the illusion of an occupant when in fact there wasn’t one._

_He couldn’t stop the twinge of guilt pricking his stomach, though he wasn’t sneaking around. It wasn’t invasive, after all, to enter a room that no longer belonged to anyone._

_Mr. Nanase technically held the house deed, but neither he nor his wife called the place home. A wealthy and busy Tokyo couple, they’d purchased the property for Grandma Nanase, who’d grown up in Iwatobi and missed life in a rural town. On the occasions she visited her son and daughter-in-law in the city, she left the house in the care of the Tachibanas, and Makoto grew familiar with its every nook and cranny._

_Something warm and dry pushed against Makoto’s arm, and he yelped. A sheepish grin spread across his face when he saw what- or rather, who- it was._

_“Hi, Sweetheart. Doing well?”_

_How the cat managed to slink into the house with every opening shuttered or locked, Makoto would never know. He angled his body slightly to scratch soft white fur between pricked ears. She met his palm with a hard nudge, demanding more, and his chuckle echoed in the stillness._

_Makoto, the ever dutiful child, continued his chores at Grandma Nanase’s house when she fell ill with pneumonia and stayed at the hospital. But his duties now included long periods of quiet, unfilled with conversation, and the quiet gave way to imagination. As he stirred and swept away the dust, he indulged in daydreams where the house was lively and occupied, like his own. A warm place Grandma Nanase would look forward coming home to._

_What would Mr. and Mrs. Nanase’s child have looked like, if they’d had one? Maybe he’d be around Makoto’s age, with Mr. Nanase’s striking blue eyes (inherited from Granny) and Mrs. Nanase’s ink black hair. Grandma Nanase mentioned her son and daughter-in-law loved photography and painting; the child would inherit their talents. Good with his hands, delicate, a decent cook- all the things Makoto wasn’t. Makoto would be envious, if it wasn’t equilibrium more than anything else._

_And then Makoto chastised himself for wishing a boy into existence, merely so he wouldn’t be alone._

_Shaking his head, he realized at least he had one usable idea, and asked his mother if they couldn’t do something (“something very, very quiet”) to welcome Grandma Nanase home. She improved steadily, well enough to scold Makoto for not tying his shoelaces properly on his most recent visit, and was set to be discharged from the hospital a few days later._

_But Makoto’s plans turned out to be for naught._

_One moment Grandma Nanase chuckled at jokes the children from the game store were telling her; the next, the heart monitor’s erratic beeps rushed doctors to her side, and Makoto’s mother headed for the hospital. His father was too worried to do much else than tap at the kitchen counter, staring at the phone. When it finally rang, the voice wasn’t Grandma Nanase’s deep, full timbre, but crisp and practiced like paperwork._

_She left the next afternoon, to a cloudless sky._

_A loud meow directly below Makoto caught his attention; Sweetheart had leaped from the desk to the bed, then to the floor, and tightly wound herself around him. He gently extricated her from between his legs, and hoisted her up to kiss her nose._

_“Thanks for visiting,” he murmured, and slowly made his way back downstairs and out of the house, the feeling of warmth in his arms holding his nerves together by a thread._

 

* * *

 

Makoto’s next breath was entirely seawater.

The burn in his chest rose, and then receded, to be quickly replaced by a sense of pervasive wellbeing.

There was a time like this, when the water came for him. But it was in retrospect, a mad struggle to stay afloat in a storm, when Makoto still had enough wits about him to lose them, and without ringing finality. He called, over and over, not for himself, and the waves relentlessly silenced him. He had only just gone under when strong arms hauled him back up, though Makoto was too dazed to do much else than cling on. He fainted, halfway to shore.

_“What does drowning feel like?”_

_A curious child piped up when Makoto’s swim class idly sat on the bleachers. In an unexpected turn of events, they were evacuated from the water mid-lesson and forced to finish poolside._

_The substitute coach’s chest swelled with bravado. “You see your life flashing before your eyes like a movie. Every second passes by really fast,” he boasted, and Makoto and his peers nodded in awe._

It was untrue about the time; in fact, in every second seemed an eternity. And Makoto’s life didn’t flash before his eyes like a film, recounting significant events. Rather, all the emotions, sensations, and memories he had ever experienced, along with everyone he had ever encountered, were compressed into one comprehensible thought. For one moment in time, and never again, his intensely addled mind understood all of the universe’s secrets.

Seventeen years of life was rather short, but a good many didn’t get longer than that. That he had never been lacking in affection or for love...

It was peaceful.

His grip on the jacket loosened, then fell away.

In Makoto’s delirium, he saw a breathtakingly beautiful face in the gloom. Too lovely to be human, with delicate cheekbones, piercing blue eyes, and black hair. An angel? No, angels didn’t willingly wander into the darkness. This ethereal creature descended, steadily and quietly, alongside him.

The clearest shade of ultramarine overwhelmed Makoto’s vision, translucent, reaching. Warmth flooded his face and torso in an embrace. The feeling resembled the flowing madness of water, but comforting in that it wasn’t the water itself.

His vision faded to black.

 

* * *

 

Humans were very…. _inconvenient_ creatures.

Yes, that was the word.

With only finite strength in their limbs and their air breathing lungs, they were ill suited for the endless sea. And yet they were drawn to it, taking from its depths, indulging at its surface, spitting back objects that sank to the ocean floor and never disintegrated, even when organisms picked at them for years to come. Were humans so desperate to become one with the water, that they would overlook their own limits?

But the water was alive, pulling everything to itself like the heart of a whirlpool. It made sense, Haruka supposed, that humans loved the sensation of gliding through the water, attempting to accept it, even if they would never move as effortlessly as he did.

Nevertheless. There he was, minding his own business, hunting for pearls, snacking on the occasional mackerel (or fifteen), when a glint of stunning green near the surface seized his attention. He headed up towards the light, mesmerized- which was replaced immediately by irritation.

How was Haruka to know the flashes of green were not collectibles for his cave, but eyes? Those belonging to a human who fell into the water, limp with surprise?

The human was young, but closer to a man than a boy, tall, sculpted, muscled, gentle looking with his sloped eyebrows and relaxed mouth, exactly the type the noisier humans on the beach would squeal over. “He is a treasure,” they’d say immediately, without even accounting for his eyes. He looked every inch a swimmer; maybe Haruka had seen him before, but forgot him in the waves of beachgoers.

If the human could swim and was in top condition, it was the ridiculous clothing that did him in, then. It looked stiff and not at all comfortable, or even possible to swim in. Then again, humans liked wearing much stranger things, from what Haruka had seen growing up in the bay.

(Every so often, someone was restrained from entering the water while wearing nothing at all. Haruka still didn’t understand how that wasn’t acceptable, when something downright stupid like what this human wore was.)

Many water dwellers followed the schools of migrating fish; they wanted the first pick and a plentiful food source, but Haruka didn’t see the point. As long as he had mackerel and clean water he was content, and he didn’t need to swim long journeys in unfamiliar oceans for the handouts the fishermen returned to the sea as an offering. Instead, he took cautious journeys to the shore starting from when he was but a fry, and learned to live alongside the humans.

He picked up how to read and write from children reading aloud on the pier as he listened under the wooden planks, and watched them practice characters in the sand with sticks. He followed along with fliers read aloud at roaring fire pits, and from empty wrappers washed out into the water. He mapped the intertidal caves by heart, along with the romantic declarations of giddy couples taking lonely walks on the treacherous rocks. He saw the importance of breathless and public “I love you”s in vows exchanged on the beach. He even learned how to tell time and the catches of the fishermen, from their rough, sun toughened voices on storm battered boats.

Haruka didn’t miss the unhappier parts, though.

The family members who stood, dressed casually but warmly against the briny gusts, with their heads bowed quietly before the seaside graves. The rare instances when someone’s life was extinguished right there on the beach, the gulls heralding the news to the skies. The blank faced man in a suit, emptying the ash canister out at open sea according to the deceased’s last wishes.

And memories that protruded out of proper time and place: of a hellish storm that threatened to tip the ocean over like a glass of water spilling onto a table. Of surfacing to white garbs and silence, of children with eyes bright from tears and fiery hair that glinted in the sun. Of a solitary child watching at the hill’s edge, his fists clutching tighter and tighter at the edge of his shirt until he bolted as fast as he could.

Haruka blinked.

He knew this human, when he was alive and well. When he didn’t have blood trailing from his mouth and nose, and when his wide-eyed gaze wasn't lifeless and still.

Haruka didn’t just recognize him as the lonely child with the green eyes, but from a year ago. He was screaming something in the tossing waves, wasn’t he? Or at least trying to, before he swallowed too much water and Haruka towed him back to the beach.

“Rei,” Haruka said, aloud.

Was the human’s name Rei? No, he wouldn’t scream his own name as he drowned. Then, his girlfriend? No, he wasn’t distressed about another person, when he awoke and coughed up the seawater in his lungs. Then, one of his friends, two of which showed up shortly after Haruka fled back into the safety of the ocean.

The human was undoubtedly strong on land. But he was breakable here and no match for the sea, which weeded out the weak. He was fortunate he had been spit out and not swallowed whole, before. But the water would claim him eventually, and most certainly this time, if Haruka didn’t intervene.

Haruka reached out to catch the human’s neck and face, the water’s shadows and ripples making him appear a thousand people within one. He carefully sealed his mouth over the human’s, even as Haruka noted that his clammy, bloodless lips resembled a fish’s.

Haruka thought of the kisses he accidentally overheard ( _not_ eavesdropped in on), which were accompanied by grandiose gestures and elaborate promises. This…this wasn't romantic. Maybe people expected a rescue as dramatic and passionate as the ones he'd seen, filmed near the shore. But Haruka knew better from watching humans bringing others back from the brink, when there were no cameras or fancy lights around to capture the anguish and grisliness.

Still, Haruka kept his own lips gentle and firm. Excess fluid exited and passed through his gills in a quiet mist; silver essence circulated in.

A kiss of life.

**Author's Note:**

> Since Haru’s not in an environment where he feels self conscious for having a typically feminine name, he doesn’t mind being “Haruka”. He trusts slowly and Makoto’s preoccupied so I didn’t want to rush their relationship, even though I still wanted their lives intertwined despite the distance. 
> 
> This fic's complete as is, but I have unused material I might return to someday.
> 
> The bit about Makoto's class being evacuated mid-lesson happened to me as a kid. Someone took a dump in the pool and everyone had to get out. :|
> 
> Thanks for reading! I camp out at @beneathelm on twitter.


End file.
